Dacia has announced 2.7 per cent growth in its sales for 2024, in an overall European car market that rose by only 1.6 per cent. It’s the fourth year in a row that Dacia’s sales have outperformed the total market, and it means that the affordable car brand rises to ninth place in the European sales charts, while the Sandero was the best-selling car overall in Europe last year.
Profitable retail sales
That was thanks to a 14.5 per cent increase in sales of both the Sandero hatchback and the SUV-lookalike Sandero Stepway, for a total of 309,392 vehicles. The Sandero was not only the best-selling car in Europe in general, but also the best-seller for retail customers — in other words customers who are spending their own money, rather than fleet or corporate buyers. Such car buyers are like gold dust for car makers, as those sales are more profitable.
The Duster compact SUV was the second-best-selling car when it came to retail sales last year, and while the model had a split year — starting 2024 with the older second-generation model and upgrading as the year went on to the new third-generation car — it too saw its sales rise by 7.3 per cent compared to 2023, with 215,204 sales. The Duster is also the best-selling SUV to retail customers, which again represents a big win for Dacia.
The Jogger seven-seater had a slightly more low-key year, finding 96,440 customers, which represented a 2.4 per cent increase in sales. 25 per cent of those were of the newer hybrid-engined model, though, and Dacia’s hybrid sales are increasing with the new Duster tracking towards a 30 per cent sales mix for its hybrid.
Spring sales stumbled
If there was a stumble for Dacia, it was with the Spring small electric car. Entirely renewed in 2024, the Spring saw its sales fall by a massive 63 per cent, a tumble which Dacia’s CEO, Denis Le Vot, put down to two things — changes in government incentives for electric cars, especially in Germany, and the fact that the new GSR2 rules governing vehicle safety equipment meaning that the previous Spring model had to be low-key withdrawn from many markets in the early part of the year.
Even with that 63 per cent fall in sales, Le Vot remained bullish on the Spring’s chances in 2025, noting that it’s priced below €17,000 in most European markets (including Ireland) and that the orders coming in for the Spring in the latter part of the year seem to show trend of it increasing its sales significantly.
2025 will be a hugely significant year for Dacia as it will also be introducing the new Bigster SUV, a larger model than the Duster and Dacia’s first foray into the huge, and hugely profitable, European C-segment.
Even though the Bigster is bigger (hence the name…) and more upmarket (electric tailgate, dual-zone climate control) than anything Dacia has made before, Le Vot was adamant that the brand is sticking to its low-cost guns.
“The reason why Dacia is moving up the the C-segment is because the Bigster’s platform permits us to do so”, said Le Vot. “Let’s be very precise here, Dacia is and will remain the most affordable brand in Europe. The fact is that the Sandero is the best selling car in Europe, and we’re not talking upmarket, that’s an accessible B-segment hatchback in the European market.”
Bigger models will still be affordable
Le Vot’s promise is that: “Accessible mobility goes for everyone. There are three million people buying C-segment SUVs at the moment and what we are doing is proposing to those people exactly the same thing with the Bigster — an essential car with everything they need, but that starts in Europe with a price of less than €25,000. So Dacia will be not only the most affordable model in the segments where it’s represented, but also the best-value for money. There’s a slightly counter-intuitive thing happening, which is that when we put the new Duster on sale 80 per cent of the clients have been ordering not the basic model, but the two top specifications, Journey and Extreme. So for that reason there’s no more glass ceiling for Dacia. The platform that we are using permits us to make a car of this size, the length of a Jogger and the height of a Duster if you like, and we can know that we can still be very accessible with this car, and enter the C-segment in Europe.”
Dacia won’t be stopping there. Le Vot confirmed that a second all-electric model, a variant of the next-generation Sandero, is in the works and will be launched before 2030. Before that, Dacia is rumoured to be working on a VW Golf-rivalling C-segment hatchback and possibly a four-door saloon, too.
In the meantime, Dacia is tackling the famous Dakar off-road rally in Saudi Arabia as this is being written, and — win or lose — Le Vot confirmed that the purpose-built ‘Sandrider’ off-road racer will be a key part of Dacia’s repositioning of its brand from simply being a maker of cheap cars, to being a maker of affordable models with an outdoors-y and rugged edge to them. Sort of like Jeep, but with far more accessible prices.
Dacia’s now flying higher than it ever has done, reaching a 4.5 per cent share of the total European passenger car market, with some 76 per cent of its customers being conquest sales from other brands (and 76 per cent of those from outside of the overall Renault Group). Better yet for Dacia, it has a 68 per cent loyalty rate, with those customers coming back to buy from Dacia again.